Lmst

#Inform7

One of my favourite things about writing Bubble Gumshoe games is finding opportunities to bung in sweets that I'd completely forgotten existed.
#ScreenshotSaturday #BubbleGumshoe #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata #Inform7

A screenshot of some text from Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata? It says:

Abandoned Store Upstairs
A former office space and storeroom, almost obliterated by water damage from the gaping hole in the ceiling. There's a rotten desk against one wall. Stairs to the shop floor run down the other.

>examine desk
A bog standard wooden office desk. Bog standard, of course, because it's incredibly soggy and it's got some gnarly mushrooms sprouting from it. There's a large drawer on the right-hand side.

>examine mushrooms
Pink and white foam mushrooms sprouting from the sodden office desk.

>taste mushrooms
They're sweet, but other than you can't quite identify what flavour they're actually supposed to be.

A close-up photograph of some foam mushroom sweets. They have white stalks and pink caps.

Just caught myself using the phrase "#Inform7 source code if Inform 7 was made for MCAD". What in the world happened to #NLP research? It would be so much more useful than what we have now, and wouldn't burn down the planet to make a database query.

I’m about to try and teach #PostScript programming to #DigitalHumanities students.

I used to teach #Inform7 in this course, which they hated. We’ll see how it goes…

I'm gradually expanding the world of Sugar City. The Church of the Immaculate Confection was actually established in "Who Iced Mayor McFreeze?", but I'm not sure anybody ever encountered it. It would only be mentioned if you took long enough completing the game that it got into morning and the church bells started ringing in the distance (shortly before the abandoned taffy factory is scheduled for demolition). #ScreenshotSaturday #Inform7 #BubbleGumshoe #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata

$A screenshot from Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata?, a parser-based text adventure written using Inform. It says: Demerara and Maple An unassuming corner on an unassuming street. To the east is Demerara Street: it's much livelier. To the west is little more than a stretch of run-down private residences. An apartment building of much the same sort stands to the north. To the south is the Church of the Immaculate Confection, its whitewashed facade standing in sharp contrast to the crumbling row of abandoned storefronts surrounding it. You can see a phone booth (closed) (in which is a payphone) here. >south Church of the Immaculate Confection A small church lined with pews. A few faithful sit upon them, heads bowed in prayer. A homeless halva sits near the back, head bowed in sleep. At the far end of the church stands the great altar, and beyond that a portrait of Pope Pontefract on the back wall. You can see Father Wafer and a confessional (closed) here. >examine portrait A portrait in a gilded scrollwork frame. It shows a distinguished religious leader wearing a richly embroidered mitre.$

Inform 7 is a magical system to code interactive fiction games in. But it's also brilliant how you can quickly test things even just to improve writing. I've just coded another test command "test X" to jump to the latest code. I can't say what X is - spoilers. But I'm very happy typing that command! #interactiveFiction #game #GameDev #IndieGames #coding #inform7

Pleased to manage some more interactive fiction game coding, now developing chapter 6 of 7 in my next parser text adventure game. Not developing in sequential order! Currently flitting to and fro between coding in Inform 7 and researching a topic. While also trying to visualise the scene in my brain! #interactiveFiction #game #GameDev #IndieGames #coding #inform7

Stumbling through #inform7 documentation. I've played with this before, and was really impressed with it, but I've forgotten everything.

Added the following to a test dungeon:
```
After giving the mushroom to the dragon:
say "yummy".
```

Actual result:
```
>give mushroom to dragon
The dragon doesn't seem interested.
```
😅

What now?

#retrocomputing #retrogaming #adventuregame #interactivefiction #Psion #Inform7

A Psion 3mx running Emily Short's Bronze.

My favorite new technology is not new. It's a natural-language game engine for creating text-based interactive stories. (Inform 7)

The latest version was released in 2022. This excellent and completely usable book was published in 2011. The game engine was created in 2006, as a rebuild of a project which was introduced when I was still getting carded for cigarettes (1993).

This is a good and appropriate pace for technology.

#Inform7 #InteractiveFiction #PermaComputing

Cover of a book "Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7", published 2011 by Aaron Reed.

I am reading the #Inform7 manual for the first time, and I really appreciate how an entire section in the beginning of the manual is devoted solely to punctuation conventions.

Possibly my favourite thing about writing these Bubble Gumshoe text adventures is coming up with the confectionery-based characters and little jokes about them.
#ScreenshotSaturday #gamedev #inform #inform7 #InteractiveFiction #BubbleGumshoe #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata

A screenshot of a parser-based text adventure. It says:

Candy Kane's Club
This place is... "seedy" is probably a little charitable. It's got some definite strip club vibes, despite the chique branding outside. Jelly babes jiggle on a large stage at the back of the room, while Candy Kane herself works the bar. Various customers sit at tables nearby in various stages of intoxication. A crowd of dancers bobs up and down enthusiastically on a dance floor closer to the stage.

The exit to Demerara Street lies to the south, a door marked "VIP Lounge" is to the west, and the washroom is to the north (in case you need to go). There's a small emergency exit leading to the alley to the east.

>x kat
A jittery security guard, apparently disinterested in everything going on nearby.

>ask kit kat about breaktime
"Please don't bother me right now," says Kit Kat, rolling her eyes. "If I don't get a cigarette soon, I'm gonna snap!"

Si conclude la trilogia delle tesine in Pascal di @fragram1976 . Proviamo questo codice per scrivere i numeri utilizzando le lettere ("24" diventa "ventiquattro"). Algoritmi simili sono utilizzati anche in Inform 7 dove si può specificare che i numeri siano scritti in lettere grazie alle parole "in words". Vediamo come funziona! #pascal #retrocomputing #avventuretestuali #inform7 #lazarus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrwwBsJ27Vk

#Presentation (🇬🇧 1/2)

I make interactive fiction games, using #Inform6, #Inform7 and #textallion (#cyoa system), in French.

Some of my creations:
https://ifdb.org/showuser?id=8b63iggeafjjqlt7

My other activities :
- Programming:
- Exploring the #forth programming language: https://gitlab.com/garvalf/forth-is-fun
- hacking the lightweight markup system #txt2tags :
https://github.com/farvardin/textallion
- a simple #wiki system: https://lionwiki-t2t.sourceforge.io/

#Présentation (🇫🇷 1/2)

Je réalise des jeux de fictions interactives, avec #Inform6, #Inform7 et #textallion (système de #ldvelh), en français.

Quelques unes de mes créations :
https://ifdb.org/showuser?id=8b63iggeafjjqlt7

Mes autres activités :
- Programmation :
- Explorer le langage de programmation #forth : https://gitlab.com/garvalf/forth-is-fun
- hacker le sysème de balisage léger #txt2tags :
https://github.com/farvardin/textallion
- un #wiki léger: https://lionwiki-t2t.sourceforge.io/

Fitting in more interactive fiction coding, working on the next bit of my latest parser game. Currently writing a mix of scheduled events and scene triggers in Inform 7/10. Tho need to work out a proper chart of possible events, based on geography and plot. Getting code syntax right, which is good! #interactiveFiction #IndieGame #GameDev #Inform7 #coding #game

Not gonna lie, I'm fond of the way #Inform7 lets me write like Arlo Guthrie:

```
The twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs are a plural-named thing.
The twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs are carried by Officer Obie.
```

(Inform 7 doesn't like names that include the word "with", so I couldn't use the full name "twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us".)

More #interactiveFiction #game writing, #coding a #ChristmasCarol scene. Magical to see the game print the lyrics being sung, in italics. Very immersive. And Christmassy! The game is only partly set at #Christmas. Coding in #Inform7, a natural language, declarative, object-oriented #programming language. #GameDev #IndieGame

I think I'm almost done with my funny little poetry/mad-libs thingy for Inform 7. Will hopefully get a post up about it this week. Might be a cool toy for people getting started with Inform. More soon!

#interactivefiction #inform7

On a different note, I'm starting to suspect I'm not creative enough to do game design... one of my personal creative goals for years has been to write a proper interactive fiction game in inform 7, but while I am technically proficient enough to make interesting mechanics, all of the ways I try to use them are fairly horrible. (Coherent plot? Engaging puzzle design? What's that?) I'm sitting on a lot of personal Inform 7 extensions that I made for fun to learn how to use the language and now don't know what to do with.

Maybe I should find a book to read about it or something.

#inform7 #interactiveFiction #gameDesign #gameDev

#Inform7

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